Tag Archives: facilities management

Will BIM move to FIM? (Webinar 16/4/10)

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The concept of a Facilties Information Model as a more encompassing, arching umbrella model to a Building Information Model has been discussed over the last few years, but with little (public) evidence of use in practice.

I guess in some ways it reflects the larger discussion between construction and facilties management, between the provision of buildings and use of buildings. And, as in practice we see FM and endusers taking a more prominent role in design and construction, we will see BIM become Facilities Information Models.

Good then to see the public debate and webinar How Owners are using BIMStorms scheduled for 16th April: (Info from BIMStorms:)

Owners are looking at BIM in a much broader way, beyond just design and construction. Learn how everyone can learn how to work with information in BIM that brings greater value to owners for the full life-cycle of projects.

Linking Business Requirements to BIM
Early Planning
Design and Construction
Facility Management
Real time sensor data connected to BIM
Managing a portfolio of projects using Real Time BIM data
Creating a feedback loop to work with existing buildings in BIM

Please join us in this webinar that will show how owners such as The Los Angeles Community College, GSA, US Coast Guard, School Districts, are using BIMStorm and the Onuma System to define projects, interact with architects and manage lifecycle information.

April 16
9:00 AM Pacific
10:00 AM Mountain
11:00 AM CT
12:00 PM Eastern
4:00 PM London
5:00 PM Oslo
1:00 AM Tokyo (April 17)

This blog post will be updated after the webinar.

twittering facilities management

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Post UPDATE:

A twitterleague group has been created at  http://www1.twitterleague.com/view_league/181  – this may not be the ideal method in the long run but a good starting point to identify those in FM who use twitter.  I can see the definition of facilities management may well be discussed again as we have fm’s, architects, construction people and property managers in the group.  As it should be !  

To be involved follow @fmleague 

 

Twitter has certainly become the buzz of the new web applications and for good reasons.  Earlier, last year, I could see that twitter would be big, but didn’t really understand why or how.  Now, after a years use I start to see the benefit, broadly around open communications, learning, sharing and inspiring concepts.  

I am also convinced that twitter can and will have a major part to play within facilities management, in engaging with building users, and even in twittering data from building systems to facilities managers.

Inspired by the work of Su Butcher to create a league of twittering architects I would like to create a directory of those in fm using twitter, and collectively start to explore and pilot using twitter.

If you are in anyway connected with facilities managemement and use twitter, and would be interested in discussing twittering fm, please leave your details as comments to this post or send me a twitter @martinbrown

A quick search on tweepsearch suggests there are only 23 users with facilities management in their profile – but there must be more ( I know there are!)

musing on a carbon 1:5:200

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Reading many items and articles on the carbon issues that the built environment faces in the coming years, I have jotted a number of random thoughts in google notebook, which may one day be useful ‘spin’ for example:

…almost every building uses more energy than design calculations …… technology alone is not enough …… design 20%, people 80% … attitudes and behaviour towards energy use need to change …….. it is our responsibility to make sure that the building users understand what they need to do to meet the carbon objectives set at the design stage…… people just change the lightbulbs and appliances as soon as they move in ……. eco bling in buildings is too complex for fm’s so they switch it off and open the window..

And then, describing the 1:5:200 concept to someone today, it clicked, maybe it is the  1:5:200 thinking that joins these snippets together and is a new paradigm required in relation to sustainability and carbon management.

Maybe, if  the impact of construction is set to 1, then could the impact or influence of fm be 5 and the impact of building users 200? (in this thinking the influence of design is 0.1)

(and of course, as with the cost 1:5:200, these are indicative magnitudes to illustrate relationships between construction fm and buildings in use, not absolute figures)

Comments welcome ….

facilities carbon management

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Indication that carbon management is becoming a key element of the facilities management role is evident through the Guardian article Cut and Run which focuses on UCLAN’s excellence performance in obtaining the Carbon Trust Standard.

The Carbon Trust says that universities and higher education institutes spend more than £200m each year on energy, and emit 3.2m tonnes of carbon dioxide over the same period – the equivalent of heating more than a million average households.

This puts the facilities management of carbon into perspective – not only as an environmental obligation but also as a social and moral one.  And yet “there is currently a capacity gap in the skills required to manage carbon reductions across large institutions”  FM organisations and institutes take note!

Interestingly UCLAN see the big challenge in carbon reduction as being travel:

Though the university lobbies the council for improvements, problems with the interchange between rail and bus timetables, for example, discourage students and staff from using them. This means transport is a factor in the university’s carbon performance that is proving particularly difficult to improve upon.

Now wash your hands and reduce your carbons … 

I have a slight concern over the quote from Richard Rugg, head of the public sector department at the Carbon Trust. “carbon management is essential. It needs to be viewed in the same way as health and safety”  

In terms of resources, focus and appropriate funds a big yes, but carbon management (as indeed is H and S) is a people, hearts and mind topic, not one of policing, instruction and order as Health and Safety is in danger of becoming / has become.  Facilities Management tend to be fast and easy with littering (even spamming?) walls with notices and instructions to visitors building users… no more please !!

defining zero carbon

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As a post on this blog noted at the end of last year, the definition of zero carbon buildings is currently under consultation by the Department for Communities and Local Government.

I am in full agreement with Casey over at Carbon Limited who blogs for a call to arms on this one, this consultation is so important that all in the built environment should engage with.

The outcome definition will shape and determine design, construction, building services  and facilities management into the future, in a similar (but more profound way) that the HASAW and CDM and other milestone legislations have done.

(from zero carbon consultation:summary)

At the core of the document is the government’s preferred framework for reaching zero carbon. In order of priority:

  1. A minimum standard of energy efficiency will be required.
  2. A minimum carbon reduction should be achieved through a combination of energy efficiency, onsite low and zero carbon (LZC) technologies, and directly connected heat. This is referred to as achieving carbon compliance.
  3. Any remaining emissions should be dealt with using allowable solutions, including offsite energy.

The zero carbon definition will have profound implications for…

… the built environment client in the choice and cost implications

… design –  a change the design parameters,

… construction, for example with airtight construction calling for a build quality and quality control we are not too good at. (Research at Leeds Met is showing that the cost of retro fixing air leaks in new buildings is  a hugely costly exercise *)

… building services – on energy sourcing and management.

And of course on the way buildings are used, run and managed.

If you haven’t read it yet, you can download it here.  or as Casey puts it – get involved or forever bitch about it in the pubs.

(* more on this later)

on public building epc’s

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The UK Communities and Local Government government website states

Our buildings are responsible for almost 50 per cent of the UK’s energy consumption and carbon emissions.

October 1st marked the date by which UK public buildings have to display their energy performance for buildings and facilities as an EPC (Energy Performance Certificate). Currently around 18,000 buildings, including town halls, museums, schools and job centres, are being tested.

The Guardian’s Hall of Shame lists a number of very prominent and public buildings that score G ( on the same A (good) to G (bad) as white goods). There is within the article a number of calls for refurbishment of these buildings – many less than 5 years old. So where was / is the sustainable design, construction and facilities management that everyone has claimed to be doing since ‘whenever‘?

a facilities management issue?

I question whether this is a design issue or the running of the building. Case studies indicate that Facilities Managers often lack the up to date eco-knowledge to manage complex building management systems, so manage all buildings ‘the same’.    In addition FM has largely been excluded from the debate, news and leading edge sustainability decision making, (at least publicly as a voice shaping our built environment sustainability future) and here we see the consequences.  (see my post on the UKGBC task group for example)

And the blame?

You can see the FM providers or managers from poor scoring buildings being called into board or chamber meetings or  to explain the low EPC score, and told to ‘do something about it’. After all no one wants to be associated with producing white goods that carry a G rating, so the same with buildings that carry a G rating.

and the costs

To be really meaningful, and easily understood the A – G ratings need to be converted into £ of wasted energy per building or per m2 for each building, to demonstrate the real cost to the tax payer of inefficient buildings or facilities.

and keep the focus on ….

It is necessary that focus remains on EPC, change will only come when the public, the building users and environmentalists (and bloggers) kept focus on EPC and displays, as with so many good initiatives this could easily fall away. Maybe the first fine for non display will sharpen minds.

the built environment twitters

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There has been a welcomed increase in Twitter from uk construction recently. New to this world is:

the UK construction magazine Construction News has a twitter @CNplus with deputy editor Nina Lovelace having a twitter account at @nina_lovelace

New Civil Engineer, now also has a twitter presence at @NCEmagazine and

Constructing Excellence has now started on twitter with @constructingexc.

I still haven’t found anyone twittering from a facilities management perspective as yet (other than myself), which is a pity as I see twitter having great potential here. (But watch this space!)

Be2camp

be2campAs Paul has mentioned over at EvolutionExtranet, These developments are perhaps the latest indications of a growing awareness and adoption of such tools within the UK mainstream built environment industry, but we are still only scratching the surface.

I would like to think the promotion of be2camp has something to do with this, Be2camp, is an online grouping which is promoting an innovative event next month at the Building Centre in London (and online). an event run on unconference or BarCamp principles, that will seek to apply Web 2.0 to the built environment (from planning and design, through construction, to facilities management).

Incidentally you can follow be2camp activity through twitter be2camp

There has of course been a regular group of built environment twitters, twittering away for most of this year, forming a small, but global and growing nucleus of practioners from all aspects of the sector who share, learn from and inspire each other. A quick round up:

Zerochamp / Phil Clark Online business journalist writing about sustainable construction and development

melstarrs / mel starrs Sustainability Engineer, Chartered Building Services Engineer (CIBSE) and BREEAM Advisor and Assessor.

EEPaul / Paul Wilkinson London-based, blogger on IT, SaaS, sustainability, construction. Also a cyclist, a Crewe Alex FC fan, a beer drinker, founder Be2camp

pbroviak Civil Engineer and Public Works Director. Publish Grid Works at www.thegridworks.info. Working to integrate engineering & virtual worlds, founder Be2camp

eversion / Rob Annable Architect

the_architect / The_Architect Chartered Architect, drinker & thinker.

jodiem / Jodie Miners founder Be2camp

CindyFW Architect, futurist, adjunct prof U of Houston + U of KS, writer, tree hugger + perma-student exploring urban futures

and myself

martinbrown fairsnape: blogger, leading and supporting built environment improvements, founder Be2camp

now wash your hands …

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I am always amazed at how a strategically important sector such as Facilities Management has somehow elevated the washroom, toilet maintenance sector to be of utmost strategic import.

Now I can already hear the moans from facilities managers, as this space may be invaded, at the excellent and innovative Welsh Assembly proposal for businesses to open their toilet facilities to the public. But this will surely reinforce the sense of place and community based facilities management, moving from contract-centric services to one of community-centric provision.

A new £385,000 public facilities scheme to encourage businesses to open their toilets to the general public has been announced by Minister for Social Justice and Local Government, Dr Brian Gibbons, today (Wednesday 20 August).

The public facilities scheme will encourage local authorities to work in partnership with businesses to improve the provision of safe, hygienic and accessible toilet facilities. More here

This story was picked up by twitter from @HMGOV the Unofficial service of official news feeds from UK Government

… on Heathrow T5 and fm

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Are the current problems and issues at Heathrow T5 a facilities management issue – one of usability, people and end user experience.

A glitch perhaps, but a costly one, in a very complex operation, one of the most complex airport moves ever, yet facilities are increasingly measured in the sense of users ‘experience’.

But with reportedly 6 months of dry runs of a terminal “built around the worlds most sophisticated baggage handling system”, the wonderful success of the design and construction will be marred, for a while at least, by operational, usability and fm issues.

The experience should have been, and probably will be one of a natural, logical journey that’s so calm, you’ll flow through.

All shine on the outside of a 4billion edifice, but nothing works, as one disgruntled passenger but it on BBC News.

… the futures nano

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The science of nanotechnology is already revolutionising the worlds of medicine and construction, according to a Guardian article looking at nanotech in food, Once Bitten
Seamless tubes of graphite one atom thick and 10,000 long (to the naked eye, large quantities would look like soot), carbon nanotubes are up to 100 times stronger than steel but around eight times lighter. They can be teased into a twine that can be woven into sheets and, potentially, mixed with composites to eventually overhaul the way – and the height to which – we build.

And those buildings could be covered with solar cells made from nanomaterials that could supply all their energy needs. 

And in communications … nanotechnology would allow the Nokia Morph concept phone to be laid flat like a keyboard or folded into a bracelet that can be connected wirelessly to a headset.

And in RFID, nano-transistors could revolutionise asset management  and hence reshape the way in which facilities management works.